Microsoft urges users to drop Internet Explorer

Microsoft is urging organisations to stop using Internet Explorer (IE) already and move on to newer products.

In a company blog post on the matter, Microsoft senior cybersecurity architect Chris Jackson says that by using IE, companies are creating 'technical debt'.

It boils down to this: businesses are using Internet Explorer because they have legacy web apps and those can only be run by IE. That means, they're deciding to use what works now, instead of thinking what needs to work long-term. This also means additional costs down the line.

Jackson says that it is very possible that organisations, using IE 6 today, go on and make a webpage using web standards that were implemented in the late 90s.

This is not the first time Microsoft has discussed, or tried to tackle technical debt. Back in 2014, it added the Enterprise Mode for IE, which lets websites render as they would in earlier IE versions. That way, they could avoid any potential compatibility problems. However, Microsoft has now straight-up called everyone out and told them that it would be for the best just to switch to a modern browser.

“Internet Explorer is a compatibility solution,” Jackson explains. “We’re not supporting new web standards for it and, while many sites work fine, developers by and large just aren’t testing for Internet Explorer these days. They’re testing on modern browsers. So, if we continued our previous approach, you would end up in a scenario where, by optimizing for the things you have, you end up not being able to use new apps as they come out. As new apps are coming out with greater frequency, what we want to help you do is avoid having to miss out on a progressively larger portion of the web!”

source itproportal

Industry: Cyber Security News